Coping skills...

I just read a post on a blog that I follow about social drinking.  And while she was, neither for or against it she was observing the message that it sends to our children. 

I thought to myself how I could write her a book on that because no one knows what social drinking and alcoholism can do to children any more than I do. 

I grew up in an alcoholic home.  All Holidays as well as vacations and most weekends centered around drinking.  Both my parents were alcoholics and neither were what you’d call “fun drunks”.  (I used to wonder "what kind of person even coined that phrase anyway?") 

My mother was a "sleepy drunk".  Two sips and she fell over right where she sat.  If she happened to be at the table she did a "gravy plant" right into her Thanksgiving dinner. This makes for some interesting dinner conversation when you have friends over...

My father, on the other end of the spectrum, was a “mean drunk” that never slept.  Alcohol had the exact opposite effect on him.  It had a kind of amphetamine effect on him and two sips would have him bouncing off the walls and when daddy didn’t sleep – nobody slept.  One - he wouldn’t let you and two - you were afraid to close your eyes around him.   He liked to entertain himself by threatening us with loaded guns when he drank. 

My father was killed in a car accident at 46.  And my mother thankfully quit drinking at 50 years old. After she quit  I asked her once why she became an alcoholic.  She told me that she didn’t set out to become an alcoholic - no one did.  She just started having a social drink with friends; then progressed to having a drink because she had had a bad day; then on to drinking on the weekend because she’d had a hard week and then just one to help her relax and then to medicate herself because of troubles that the drinking caused and then she just woke up one day and…there she was.

Because of that candid conversation I have always been very cautious of social drinking.  So I just don’t.  Not because I believe it is a horrible sin or that you will go to Hell for drinking a mixed drink or having a beer with the guys but because I am now aware that no one sets out to become an alcoholic – you just wake up one day –and there you are.  I am also keenly aware of the fact that alcoholism, drug abuse and addictive behavior runs in families.  

I also remember what my life was like as a child and was determined never to give my children the kind of life I prayed every day to get out of. 

I think today along with alcoholism we have a far worse problem with an entire generation of people that medicate their lives away with prescription drugs.   The problem with that is that because it was prescribed by a doctor – that somehow makes it ok and they do not even see it as a problem.  Antidepressants, Sleep Aids, Pain Killers, Muscle Relaxants, Anti-anxiety drugs are all handed out like M&Ms.  And they are wrecking lives; innocent lives because like alcohol – it is ruining the lives of everyone around them not just the ones taking the drug.  And the pharmaceutical companies and unethical doctors are no better than the drug dealers on the streets because like the drug dealers they are in it for the money.

I cannot name five people that I know that are not on something. 

What happens to our future generations when no one learns how to deal with the normal problems of life, or a little minor physical discomfort or the normal stresses of illness, grief or sadness – but instead rush to the doctor because "there's a pill for that"? 

My sister is dealing with Leukemia, chemo therapy, bone marrow transplant and the many issues that causes.  She is afraid to cry and exhibit emotions because the nurses  keep asking her if she is depressed?  “Let us know if you are because we can prescribe something for you.”  Of course she is depressed!  Anyone in her shoes would be depressed.  That is not a chemical imbalance – that is a normal reaction to what she is going through. 

Everyone I talk to asks me if I have been to the doctor to get “something to help me sleep; something for my nerves; something to help me cope; something for depression?” 

Please don’t misunderstand me.  I am not against medication when you need it.  But I lost three members of my family; my youngest child; my daughter in law and the baby that I absolutely adored.  Many days I wonder if I will be able to go on. Many days – I don’t even want to. The loss is so great and the pain so deep until I wonder how I will survive it. But the loss was real – not imagined.  I’m grieving. This is a normal reaction to such a loss.  Covering it over with pills will not make it magically go away.  It will not bring them back or lessen my pain more than temporarily.  For my life to go on I need to face this and I need to learn to cope with the reality that I now have – I’m kind of thinking medicating it will only add to my problems.  They will still be gone and I will have a drug dependency to go along with the loss.  Just saying…

So many whys...

Well, we had the second and last interview with the Sergeant at the Sheriff's Department.  I came away feeling "defeated".


We have spent the last two months asking for only two things:  A list of the prescription medications (there was a total of 5, we only knew about two) taken from the house; and a toxicology report.


The Sergeant assured me he had the list of medicines for me finally.  And that he had the autopsy results back and he would meet with us to discuss his findings.  He agreed to this because I emailed him and asked him why no one cared to find out “why” this happened as they say because there was no cause. I told him I wanted a toxicology report as we were told would be done – we suspected if things happened like he said that Ambien was involved; I wanted the list of drugs taken from the scene.  And I had tried on three different occasions to get the drug list from the Coroner, to no avail.


I drove the 35 miles to the Sheriff’s office.  My daughter also drove about 25 and we met him a second time.  The big breakthrough information he had for us was that the autopsy showed Brian died of a gunshot wound to the head.  The list of medications he had for us were the same two we had had all along he had just changed the names to the generic name.  And the “why” that he told us was a story he apparently made up on the spot to give us some false sense of closure.


Our basis for not believing that this happened out of some vengeful act of malice caused by an argument or as they suggested, he had just found out that his wife was cheating on him and snapped or that she had threatened to leave him and take the baby - was the fact that nothing was wrong and none of that was true.  And that they needed to find out what the prescription drugs were that were in the house because something had to explain this - what they were saying happened was absolutely impossible.  Brian would never have intentionally hurt his wife or his child under any circumstances; Kara had done nothing wrong; and they were not getting a divorce.  Brian and Kara were not arguing, there was no other man, no depression, no problems that would have even caused him to kill himself much less hurt the ones he loved.


So to make me have a quasi valid reason that might explain this.  He sat there and told us that Kara's mom told him during her "interview" that Kara had in fact called her and confided to her that she "wanted to leave Brian and come back home and live with her."  My daughter and I both sat in stunned silence unable to dispute it because we could not of course prove it had not happened.  He assumed because of the circumstances that we were not in touch with Kara’s mom to know the difference I guess. We asked when this conversation took place?  He said, "I do not have timeline on that."  Well if this, in fact, was an interview to try and determine probable cause - why not?  Wouldn't that have been important?  It upset my daughter and I and we just gave up and left.  It left us both speechless.  But my daughter would not rest until she heard that straight from Kara's mom - who adamantly denied ever saying that.  As a matter of fact she only said, "If Kara had had any indication that they were either one in danger - she would have taken that baby and left. But apparently she never did.  My baby was determined to make that marriage work no matter what."


So he had tried to pull off a deception regarding the medication names.  And then turned right around and made up a complete lie to get us to go away and stop asking him for information as to how the investigation was carried out and why they just came to this conclusion.


And as for me requesting that they order the toxicology report like they told us they were doing – He says he spoke with his Major and that they will absolutely NOT order the test because they do not need it to prove cause and manner of death.  But that I can hire an attorney, get a court order and have the blood released to a private lab of my choice and pay for it and do it myself.


We thanked him and left.


I will leave him alone. But not because of his ridiculous scenario about Kara leaving has given me closure but because asking him anything is a waste of my time and gasoline.  He told me a lie and in my eyes that makes him a liar.  I have no interest in hearing anything more he has to say because I cannot trust him.


I called the GBI myself yet again regarding getting the blood sample.  They told me they could do the toxicology test if I would call the Coroner and get her to order it.  I told them she would not.  The Sheriff’s Department would not and I just needed to know the proper channels to get it myself.  They told me I needed a court order to get it.  I asked her why I needed a court order to get what belonged rightfully to his next of kin and not them?  She told me she would transfer me to open records and I could discuss it with them.  I did.  They told me all I needed was to request it in writing and gave me an email address.  No lawyer.  No judge.  But I did need a lab for them to send it to.  I then hung up to call private labs.  Where I was told that they could not test the blood because it was over 7 days old!  It was three weeks before I found out no tests were even being done and because of the lies we were told about that – we now had no recourse.  


How can I ever believe what I have been told about their death when not one single piece of information we have received has been the truth?


These were my children.  They deserve better than what they have gotten.  Brian's may have been a suicide but to accept this without an explanation, a motive and a believable truth is to diminish Kara and Paxton's lives entirely like they just weren't worth the trouble.


We owe it to all of them to get the truth.  They do not deserve to die and have nobody care "why" enough to even investigate it.  All of the reasons that someone walks in and does this; all of the scenarios that he gave me are absolutely NOT the case here.  According to what the Sergeant himself stated: There was no alcohol in the house.  There was no evidence of a single thing disturbed in the home.  They had bathed, put on pajamas, put the baby to bed, cut off lights, closed the blinds and "all" gone to bed.  According to their investigator "all" of them had gone to bed and it appeared everyone had gone to sleep. How did this not raise a red flag?


No answer.


Why if everything appeared normal was this just accepted at face value as being a domestic murder/suicide?  How if nothing fit the normal expected scenario and you walk in and there are five prescription drugs in the house did someone not assume drug interaction or drug side effects could have contributed to this and do a simple toxicology screen to find out?  Why when the  police on the scene said they had never had a “domestic call” to that house ever and they walk in and see a custom-made baby gate to keep the baby safe on the stairs, toys and a  child's room lovingly decorated, hundreds of children's books and movies, hot wheels cars, a clean and organized home, fifteen different translations of the bible, various bible study guides and books on religion on the book case, family portraits lining the walls and by all accounts no evidence of anything but a loving and happy little family.  Why was this not a red flag that something about this scene was amiss?  Why if they could explain away a suicide did “murder” not require a full investigation?  Why did Kara and Paxton's life not mean more to them than that?  They didn’t even bother to check their phones for texts or emails indicating a spat, infidelity, threats?  No one even cared enough to give us the correct date of death.  No one cared.  Period.


We care.  It is important to us.  The truth, a motive, something that makes sense - matters to us --because they mattered to us.  They always will. 


I love and miss them every one every single day.  And I believe with all my heart they deserve better than this - all of them.